Man inventories Winnebago County’s natural resources

After years of fighting City Hall for environmental causes, Mark Dahlgren has decided he can join the bureaucrats and protect the environment at the same time.

Isaac Guerrero

After years of fighting City Hall for environmental causes, Mark Dahlgren has decided he can join the bureaucrats and protect the environment at the same time.

Dahlgren’s kitchen table is covered with hand-drawn maps showing bird populations, soil types and fish habitats across Winnebago County. He’s spent countless hours compiling the information for county officials who are drawing up a land-use plan that will recommend where the subdivisions, restaurants, factories and shops of tomorrow should — and should not — be built.

The culmination of Dahlgren’s work is a 16-page report identifying where important plant and animal species and other natural resources are. That information is in the hands of consultants to incorporate into the county’s land-use plan.

The county is paying St. Charles consultant Christopher B. Burke Engineering West $100,000 to compile an inventory of the county’s natural resources and make all of the data available to anyone with a computer and an Internet connection.

Consultants have Dahlgren’s report and other environmental data and are asking the public for even more, whether it’s the location of a wildlife habitat, a patch of prairie or any other natural resource that might not have been documented by local, state or federal agencies.

“If nothing else, this will give the environment in Winnebago County some ammunition,” Dahlgren said. “I think it will also lead to a more common-sense approach to deciding where development belongs.”

Dahlgren, 56, is a vocal environmentalist. He’s lobbied local governments against the proliferation of cell phone towers. He was arrested for trespassing eight years ago while protesting the county’s Springfield Avenue extension through privately owned land.

Today, he’s planting native grasses and thousands of indigenous hickory, oak and pine trees on his 23 acres southwest of Rockford. The federal government is paying him a small stipend to reforest the land via a conservation program.

“I know a little bit about trees, but I’m no expert,” Dahlgren said. “I’m not a bird guy. I’m not a soils guy. But I realize that there are these resources here and if we don’t inventory the stuff we have, we won’t know what we’re losing every time we build a new subdivision in Roscoe or a big-box store on (Illinois) 173.”

When county officials began the process of building a new land-use guide last year, there were no plans for a natural resources survey. The idea started with Dahlgren, said Judy Barnard, a former administrator in the County Board Chairman’s office, who, like Dahlgren, has given county officials advice on how to build the land-use plan.

“It was Mark’s insistence to the County Board that this became a reality,” Barnard said. “The long-term value of this inventory is that people will be able to go online and find all kinds of information about land in Winnebago County.”

When the natural resources inventory is finished in June, the information will be accessible at wingis.org. The Web site is the home of county’s Geographic Information System, a mapping tool that uses aerial pictures to identify land, flood zones, streets, fire hydrants and other infrastructure throughout the county. Missing from that tool is the location of environmentally sensitive areas such as hilltop prairies or wildlife habitats.

“Having that information online will be a big help,” said David Dale Johnson, a real estate agent with Prudential Crosby Realtors.

Real estate speculators will have one more tool to use when choosing a spot to develop, he said.

“Developers, for the most part, know what they’re getting into when they buy land,” Johnson said. “But this can only help developers, or anyone for that matter, learn as much as they can about a piece of land before it’s considered for development.”

Staff writer Isaac Guerrero can be reached at 815-987-1371 or iguerrero@rrstar.com.

Where the wild things are

There are 50 documented endangered and threatened animal and plant species in Winnebago County, according to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. The county is compiling an inventory of natural resources so that officials know where environmentally sensitive land and habitats are located before a new land-use plan is put into effect later this year.

Survey available

Winnebago County is asking residents to pass along any information they have about private or public natural resources in the county that might not have been previously recorded by local, state, federal or private agencies but still are considered assets. This inventory will be used to help protect and manage natural resources in the future. Forms and instructions are available online at wingis.org/NaturalResourceInventory.asp.

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